Amos 6:1a, 4-7, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31
Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote,
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”
The frequency with which these words are quoted, “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” words which can be traced back to St. Augustine, the frequency reflects a certain truth. Love makes us vulnerable. The very thought of losing our spouse, or our child, or our dear friend, is painful. And, yet, we learn through life, that there really is no other way to live. Love opens us to beauty and goodness. Ultimately, it is not a matter of gain outweighing loss, of the gifts received through the relationship outweighing the pain of death. Rather, love makes us whole, love shows us the breadth and depth of human emotion. Through the joy and the sorrow, we know life more fully, we come closer to living into the fullness of God’s Creation.
Our lessons today speak to living into the fullness of Creation. Our lessons call us to feel, to allow ourselves to feel all that makes up this life. Luke recalls the story of the rich man who feasted sumptuously every day and the poor man who lay at the gate hoping for the crumbs off the table. After death, being tormented in Hades, the rich man pleads with Abraham to warn his brothers of their fate, and Abraham responds that the brothers need only to listen to the prophets. The prophet Amos proclaims: “Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory and anoint themselves with the finest oils, but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph!” We are called to feel, to open ourselves to the good and to the bad, to the beauty and to the ugliness, to the gifts and to the needs of this world.
I recall a great movie that came out in 1997 called Good Will Hunting. This movie is about a young man who is brilliant, but rather lost in life. He is working as a janitor at a university and one day solves a mathematical problem that has been left on a blackboard by a professor as a challenge to the students in his class. The professor discovers that Will has solved the problem and decides to take him under his wing. As part of his tutelage, the professor insists that Will meet with a therapist. Over time the therapist comes to recognize Will’s challenge in life. Having endured a difficult childhood, Will protects himself by not allowing himself to feel, not allowing himself to really experience life. The therapist offers these words of wisdom to a brilliant, yet emotionally guarded young man.
“If I asked you about art you could give me the skinny on every art book ever written…Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet, life’s work, criticisms, political aspirations. But you couldn’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. And if I asked you about women I’m sure you could give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. But you couldn’t tell me how it feels to wake up next to a woman and be truly happy. If I asked you about war you could refer me to a bevy of fictional and non-fictional material, but you’ve never been in one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watched him draw his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love I’d get a sonnet, but you’ve never looked at a woman and been truly vulnerable; known that someone can kill you with a look. That someone could rescue you from grief. That God had put an angel on Earth just for you. And you wouldn’t know how it felt to be her angel, to have the love be there for her forever – through anything, through cancer. You wouldn’t know about sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand and not leaving because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term “visiting hours” didn’t apply to you. And you wouldn’t know about real loss, because that only occurs when you lose something you love more than yourself, and you’ve never dared to love anything that much.”
Do we dare to love God that much? Do we dare to love God so completely, as God loves us, that we open ourselves to all that is Creation? In one way or another, we have all been touched by disappointment, or challenges, or tragedy in life. We cope through our faith and the support of our family, friends and communities. But, why on earth would we want to open ourselves to tragedy beyond our communities? Why on earth would we want to feel the pain of this world? Because we live in this world. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his collection of sermons entitled A Ray of Darkness, eloquently describes this principle of life. “God promises us hearts of flesh! He promises that at the very center of our selves will be something essentially fragile. What kind promise is that? It is the promise that God will make us members of the human race—no more and no less; able to listen, speak, and share with the imprisoned and ill-treated; belonging in the same world as the poor, the despised, the people without hope or legal redress. It is a promise that we shall be given the strength to open our hearts in welcome… Why should we want to live thus? Because the alternative is having no object but ourselves, no world but what we can imagine: the hell to which the heart’s idolatry leads” (p. 35)
When we love another person deeply and profoundly, we expose ourselves to the heartache of loss. And, yet, through that love, we live into the fullness of life, into the breadth and depth of emotion – we love God in embracing the wholeness of Creation. The thought of feeling the pain of this world is daunting – it is just so easy not to go there, not to feel the pain of being poor and uneducated and powerless and hungry. But, I believe, when we open our hearts, the experience is not debilitating. Rather, we experience the wisdom of embracing all that is. Ever loved by God and guided by the Holy Spirit, we find our path through this world, celebrating the gifts and serving the needs.
